As is well known, various types of waxes are often applied to the base of a ski to condition its sliding surface to different snow conditions. A wax of the hot melt type is commonly used for this purpose to improve the gliding properties of the ski. The wax is applied to the ski base as a relatively hot liquid. Upon cooling, the wax sets and adheres to the ski base forming a relatively hard surface layer that covers the entire base area, including the longitudinal guide groove usually present therein.
However, as initially applied, the wax layer is usually too thick and uneven for a superior glide, and accordingly some wax removal is usually necessary to provide a thin, smooth sliding surface along the entire length of the ski and to clean out the guide groove. In other words, an optimal glide is produced by providing a very thin smooth layer of wax on the ski base. Also, after infrequent use of the ski, rewaxing may occur because of localized damage to the wax layer caused by the ski sliding over rocks, roots or other hard objects. As a rule, however, it is not desirable to make localized repairs to the wax layer by applying fresh hot wax to selected spots on the ski base. Rather, the preferred practice is to apply a fresh layer of wax to the entire base of the ski. Also, to avoid excessive wax build-up, it is sometimes preferable to remove the old wax layer before a new one is applied.
Wax is usually removed from a ski base by means of a handheld blade-type scraper. Often the scraper is simply a generally rectangular metal or plastic plate having on or more relatively sharp edges. The skier scrapes away the wax by placing the edge of the plate crosswise on the ski base and sliding the plate along the ski while tilting the plate in the opposite direction.
Prior hand-held tools of this general type are disadvantaged in that there are no means other than the skier's hand for guiding the scraper along the ski. Consequently, the scraper blade tends to wander laterally as it is pushed along the ski base. Resultantly, the removal of the wax coating i not uniform over the surface of the ski base so that an irregular sliding surface is presented to the snow, and the ski does not glide as well as might be desired. Additionally, the prior blade type scrapers are difficult to hold and manipulate for maximum effect.
Another disadvantage of conventional scrapers is that they are not specifically designed to effectively remove wax from a guide groove in the ski base. Some skiers use a corner of the scraper blade to scrape wax from the guide groove. However, if that blade has sharp corners it tends to score the bottom or sides of the guide groove. On the other hand, if the blade has rounded corners and so does not score the ski, the blade still does not remove wax effectively from the guide groove because the blade corners do not normally have the same shape as the groove cross section or profile. Also, the moving blade can slip out of the groove and scratch or gouge the base of the ski. Bear in mind too that the cross sectional dimensions and shape of the guide groove are not the same for all skis. Therefore, if a particular scraper is effective in removing wax from the guide groove of one ski, that does not necessarily mean that it will be so for other skis and unless all of the old wax is removed from the guide groove, wax there will be at least some degradation extent the gliding properties of the ski.